


Coming Home, Going Home

by mehenisms



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, ship tag christening!, sigh bungie let me fix your game with gays, soft angst...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 07:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13608318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mehenisms/pseuds/mehenisms
Summary: Oh how selfless this man must be; oh how selfish this man had become.Cowardice often masquerades as bravery. Or does bravery hide behind cowardice?Osiris must face the facts, and stare down reality once again.





	Coming Home, Going Home

**Author's Note:**

> ayyyyy. i love this ship. i don't love bungie making vance into a harmful gay man sterotype in d2. i also don't like how they made osiris look, so for the fun of it, i like to write him as looking a little younger. so imagine him with beaded dreads, a well-trimmed beard, and not quiiiite as wrinkly.
> 
> see end notes for clarification.

"I think, perhaps," he hesitated, "and this is just my opinion – but maybe...."

Osiris, seated on a stone outcropping carved from the spire's own Vex architecture, rested his elbow on his knee and leaned forward to drag his hand down his face. When he spoke, his voice was muffled from his palm resting over his mouth. "Go on, then."

"Maybe...." Vance began again, hesitant to continue even as he moved forward to place his hands on his love's shoulders to offer a gentle, reassuring squeeze, "you should go back, and--"

"And what?" Osiris turned his head to look up at the other man with sharp eyes, his hand still raised at chest height, while his other rested on his thigh.  "Come charging back in like I never left? Pretend everything is fine, and that this-" he gestured to Vance, and then back to himself, "-never happened? Or, or worse – I sweep him off his feet and pretend he's you. Like nothing is different."

After flinching at his tone, Vance frowned with just enough sadness to bring about a change in Osiris. But before he could speak again or apologize, Vance took his hands from Osiris' shoulders and entwined his own fingers together. He did not look away from where he thought those piercing yellow eyes should be, though. "Is that not what you did with me?" His voice held the same quietness he always spoke with around Osiris, but it was softer, and more vulnerable than usual. Bleeding.

"...Vance, I didn't mean--"

The disciple's eyes held the same sadness as before, even as he turned the edges of his mouth upward in a wounded smile. "I understand. But surely, he will not. Or...does not. Have you considered that?" He paused and began to turn away, but Osiris stopped him by turning, reaching out, and grabbing his clasped hands. When he felt a tug, Vance gave in and stepped forward towards the seated Osiris but turned his eyes downward. "Did you think about how he must miss you? As I do, each time you leave me?"

Osiris stayed quiet, merely looking up at Vance's face. Those bright blue eyes always captivated him. He counted himself lucky Vance felt comfortable around him without his blindfold.

"When you leave," he began again, quietly, "it's like an ache. It starts in my chest, and sinks down to my feet, crawls out through my arms.... It's heavy and cold; it sits in my throat and sometimes I cannot speak, and instead may only choke out your name. Do you think he feels the same way I do, even though I have the luxury of knowing you will return?" Another pause as Vance untangled his fingers and instead wove them between Osiris' own. "Faora asks me if I know that you will return, when you leave us. I insist that of  _course_ I do. You will  _always_ return to me. She never asks me how I know."

It was all Osiris could do but to visibly cringe. He knew what came next. The anticipation of it felt like lava was slowly filling up his chest.

"Can he say the same, Osiris? Does he know?" 

No answer.

"Did you ever make him feel certain, as you have made me?"

Still, silence.

"Think about how he must be feeling. How long have you been here, with me?"

"A long time."

"In  _your_ time, Osiris. How long has it been?"

"…A long time."

"Mmmh." 

Vance pulled himself apart from Osiris's grasp again and, placing one hand on the wall to his left, shuffled forward until he met the edge of the tunnel they had slunk away to. The bright sun burned far out before him; they always seemed to find themselves together at the spire's end. It was almost poetic. He had seen the light of the sun before, but it had been so long that he could not recall its beauty. The closest he could get was the imprint of light when he closed his eyes, whether in the face of the sun, or when exposed Osiris' own Light-given radiance – although he would deem them comparable, for more than just the romance of it. 

The stone was warm to the touch. He spread his fingers out and curled them around the corner's edge, quietly taking in the sun's warmth through his palm as he closed his eyes to the bright, burning light. His other hand rested idly by his side; Osiris remained exactly where he had been, only turning to watch in silence as Vance moved. The moment was too precious, however, and after heaving a heavy breath, Osiris rose to his feet and slunk silently over to where Vance stood. With deliberate, though hesitant, movements, he slipped his arms around Vance's waist and pressed his chest to his back before allowing his Light to seep out into the space around him. Vance quivered at the Light's touch, but did not flinch, and settled into Osiris' arms quickly. 

Like a tamed beast, Osiris slowly rested his chin on Vance's shoulder and tilted his head to lean against his neck with a hearty sigh. After a moment of stillness between them, Vance raised his right hand to stroke his love's hair, trail his fingers across his jawline, and leave it to rest near the nape of his neck. Osiris could feel the deep rumble from Vance's throat as he spoke.

"Imagine how he would love this."

It was rash, and impulsive, but Osiris responded quickly. " _I_  love it.  _Here_ , and  _now_. Where we are."

He lifted his head as Vance twisted his shoulders to be able to look at the man-shaped imprint of Light to his side. "Oh, but love..." he spoke so softly that if Osiris had been any farther away, he may not have heard him. "This place isn't  _real_. This time, this--"

"This  _is_ real." Osiris did not snap, but his voice was certainly rougher than how he would usually speak around Vance. "It  _is_ real, Vance. It's real. It's as real as  _me_ , as--"

" _You_." Vance smiled, but it was hollow. " _You_ are the realest thing here." Another moment of silence passed between them as Osiris began to look distraught, and Vance, feeling the shift in his Light, stroked him again. "Ya habib alby...it's okay. I have accepted it. I will disappear when you are ready. Or, perhaps... _you_ will."

Stunned, Osiris merely stared. A single tear crept out from the corner of Vance's eye and left a faint streak of red down his cheek as he trailed his fingers over Osiris' jawline, back up to his beaded locs, and down again in the same slow rhythm over and over again. The Warlock wanted to reach up and wipe it away, to kiss Vance until he laughed again, to take his pain away, but...it wouldn't matter. His tears would not leave salt on his cheeks as Osiris' own would. His voice would always sound a little too flat and lifeless, and his laughter just hollow enough to haunt Osiris' dreams even as he laid down to sleep with Vance in his arms. He was not warm the way a person should be: It was a fake warmth, like that of an overheated machine, rather than the living heat of a human body. His eyes were beautiful, but each fleck of vibrant blue was just another one or zero. His body was too perfect; he bore no scars or marks. And his hands were not as soft as Osiris knew they should be. 

"You are ready; you know this." Vance spoke with unbridled sadness now, deciding it would do neither of them any favors to hide it any longer. "You have made me so happy, my darling. But that isn't what matters: Have I made you happy?"

" _Yes_." The word was little more than a breath when it slipped out of Osiris' lips. This moment had a terrible grip on his lungs and seemed to squeeze more air from them with each passing second. It was constricting, even as Vance believed he was breaking Osiris' self-inflicted shackling. 

"Then you know, now. When you found me, it was deliberate; I had been waiting for you. But you were so unsure!" Another tear rolled down his cheek, in direct opposition to the smile he still wore. "But now you walk with purpose among us. With direction, strength, and now  _love_ as well. You can return to them – to  _him_ – without losing that. It is my gift to you. I want you to keep it."

Osiris choked as he tried to respond: "I--...I...."

Vance shrugged off Osiris' arms, removed his hand from his love's face, turned to face him fully, and took his hands, raising them to chest height between them. The sun silhouetted him with its light; he seemed even more an angel than ever as Osiris looked over his now-shadowed face in not-so-subtle anguish.

"Don't be sad, darling. You won't lose anything when you leave. You have only great things to gain!"

Sagira phased into the alcove, breaking the sound of the solar wind behind them with a gentle  _beep_. 

"There," Vance turned his head toward the sound. "It is time. I have seen it; it is all there...I have been preparing for when this moment would come." Sagira wordlessly blinked at Vance, and he nodded his head to her in kind before looking back towards the warm Light emanating from the man holding his hands. "She holds the key."

Betrayal plain to see on his face, Osiris turned to look at his Ghost in disbelief. In the same breath, Vance released one of his hands to hold his palm out slightly to his left and waited for several long, heavy seconds before blinking in response to the new weight in his palm. With another solemn nod, he renewed his smile and held the object out to Osiris, who stepped back but dared not release Vance's other hand, for fear that he might disappear the second he let go. 

"It is  _time_ ," Vance repeated, "you know it to be true. You are ready. You have no more need for this place." He hushed Osiris before he could interrupt and almost certainly argue. "What is waiting for you is so much more than all of this, my darling."

Osiris looked away, and Vance squeezed his hand. "So much  _more_ than  _me_."

Sagira offered another gentle  _beep_ , and with a glance at Vance, she used her interfacing field to switch the cubes into the proper alignment, as she often did when Osiris was too distracted to recall the proper combination himself. Vance held the key up, and behind Osiris appeared a triangle of blue, which Osiris himself would soon note, for the first time, was the same shade as Vance's eyes. He turned to stare forlornly into the portal, searching the visible timestream for the proper gateway. He had to tear his eyes away, however, to look back at Vance, who had begun to loosen his grip on his hand.

"Let go, my darling." He still smiled, somehow, though it was seeming less and less real by the moment. He released Osiris from his grasp, only to press the cubes into his hand and push it away, back towards his love of flesh and bone. "Let go. He's still waiting for you."

And yet Osiris simply stood in place, cradling the key in his hands like something precious, though his eyes still lingered on Vance's own sightless gaze: Those eyes...a beautiful baby blue flecked with a deeper green at the edges. He found himself dismayed in realizing that he could not remember if they were true to the original. Was any of this? The Lighthouse was the same, mostly, and Vance was still as sweet as Osiris knew him to be. But how much of this was truly a lie? How much of this was catered to him and what he wanted from it? Was this...this fragment of code that he had fallen for telling the truth? Was he even capable of truthfulness, or would he always tell him what he wanted to hear? There was no guarantee that Vance -  _his_ Vance, the one who bled - would be happy to see him after all this time away. How could anyone know for certain what would happen?

Sagira floated down and bumped his chest, causing him to stumble backwards a step or two away from Vance. "Time to go, big man." Osiris looked from Vance, to the key in his hands, and finally to Sagira, with the confusion of a child on his face. "He's right."

Vance stood still and, after closing his eyes, watched the Light shift and change with a tearful half-smile-half-grimace as Osiris turned and stumbled towards the gateway, guided by Sagira's soft nudging. Feet shoulder width apart, he stood before the great pyramid of Vex light that would take him away from this simulation, eyes trained on his next exit before he even left. But he couldn't help but look over his shoulder at Vance again, who raised one hand as if to wave before clasping his palms together to hold his hands in front of him.  _Always so_ _deliberate_ _, always so serene_ _,_  Osiris thought, even as Sagira bumped against his dreads to turn his gaze back to the portal. 

Staring back into the deep blue, he still hesitated. Sagira floated away towards Vance, and then turned towards Osiris again. She did not even look at Vance as she waited, hoping Osiris would take the last step himself.

"Osir--" Vance cleared his throat, "Osiris...." The Warlock looked over his shoulder again, hopeful. Sagira readied herself for the worst. 

"I love y--"

Just as quickly as the words began to ring out, Sagira felt Osiris pull back from the portal, and took the action she was hoping he wouldn't make her take. Flinging herself forward, she slammed her shell into his back as hard as she could, staggering him enough to send him through the gateway. 

And just like that, he was gone, and it was over. 

 _Remember: He's waiting, right? You're_ welcome _._

**Author's Note:**

> for clarification, if it's needed: osiris has been spending time in the simulant present within the infinite forest testing the waters of a relationship with vance via a simulation, as he is extremely insecure about his feelings and is too worried about the outcome to confess them to the vance he knows. but as the master of the forest, it knows his desires, and still doesn't entirely bend to his will....
> 
> lmk if you wanna see more of this ship! i have plenty of ideas floating around for one-shots and such if anyone thinks i should pursue it. thanks!


End file.
